For

Against

A budget of £400 typically buys you a 26 or 32-inch LCD TV from one of major manufacturers. All credit to Hannspree, then, which has managed to deliver a fully blown 42-in, full HD set at this price.

Finished in the currently fashionable gloss black look, there's little superficially to tell the SJ42DMBB apart from dozens of other TVs currently on the market.

For its part, Hannspree is keen to point out that the SJ42DMBB can be 'easily' wall-mounted.

There's none of the proprietary high-tech picture processing you'd expect from companies like Panasonic and Sony, although Hannspree makes reference to an 'ultra-fast' 6.5ms refresh time and 'hi-colour' processing. Screen backlighting is provided by a conventional CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) rather than LEDs.

The integral Freeview tuner boasts digital teletext and a side-mounted CI (Common Interface) slot for pay-TV upgrades, but is only compatible with standard-definition UK channels. You may pay more for a 42in, full-HD TV from one of the bigger brands, but nowadays the digital tuner will almost certainly be ready for Freeview HD.

Also on offer are an analogue tuner with 100-page teletext and Nicam stereo, three 1080p/24-compatible HDMI inputs (one of which is side-mounted), a choice of basic viewing modes and a handful of simple gimmicks.